35 Language Change
Dr. Charul Jain
Learning outcome:
This module aims at acquainting the learners with the various concepts and trends related to language change. They will be introduced to family trees of languages and the synchronous and Diachronous changes that take place in languages and impact them. They would be made aware of changes that take place in languages overtime and during the same time. They would also be sensitized to various changes in language that exist as a result of field of profession, class, caste, gender, and region.
INTRODUCTION
“The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -” ― Heraclitus
Language is an integral aspect of all human communities and societies. Can you imagine living without a language?
Language variations over time
Changes come in language over time. These changes can be broadly divided into two main categories dependent upon time.
Synchronous: Synchronous means “at the same time”. The differences that exist in a language simultaneously (at one time) are called synchronous varieties. They are of two prominent types:
Dialects: languages have different varieties that differ from one place to another, one society to another, one class to another. I am sure you would know that the Hindi that is spoken in Western U.P. is different from the one that is spoken in Lucknow and similarly the Marathi that is spoken in Mumbai is different from that spoken in Ratnagiri region. You would also know that the language that is spoken in the urban region is different from the language that is spoken in rural region. Similarly, the Tamil that is spoken by upper class people will be different from the Tamil spoken by the vegetable vendors or the Rickshaw drivers. These differences exist in the same language at the same time.
Registers are the differences in language that occur at the same time with reference to the subject matter of the profession. For example, if you look at the language used by a journalist in a newspaper article would be different from the language of a story on the same subject.
Diachronous: changes that occur in language over a period of time are called Diachronous changes. As you all would know, languages do change over time. The kind of language that your grandparents speak would be different from the language that you speak, isn’t it? For example, the word ‘nice’ which is a compliment did not mean so earlier.
The meaning of ‘nice’ ranged from ‘simple and foolish to cowardly,elegant, and effeminate’. Today it is a synonym for ‘pleasant’. Do check-up the change in meanings that have occurred for a few of the common words awful, guy and gay.
Language trees and families: The renowned philologist Sir William Jones identified similarities between three great ancient languages, Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. He traced the closeness of some basic words in the three languages like, mother, father and brother to prove his case.
| Word | Sanskrit | Latin | Greek |
| Father | Pitar | Pater | Patēr |
| Brother | Bhratar | Frāter | Phrāter |
He further argued that all these three languages were so similar that it is likely that they all emerge from the same language, which he called the ‘proto-‘ language. Thus, the idea emerged that languages are related to each other like brothers and sisters and they have parent languages and children languages. Thus also, came up the concept of family trees of languages just as we human beings have our family trees. Given below is the family tree of English (which belongs to the Germanic family of languages) and several Indian languages (Indo-Iranian family of languages) which are in fact, cousins, as you can see from the family tree of the Indo-European languages.
[source: http://www.memrise.com/course/413127/cognates-in-indo-european- languages/4/]
Do you know that many Indian languages have emerged from Sanskrit? Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi have all come from Sanskrit. If a speaker of Gujarati listens to Marathi, there is a good chance of understanding some of what is being said. Similarly a Panjabi speaker can understand a little of Hindi. This is because the languages share some things in common like, words, sentence structure, meanings, etc. Marathi and Hindi both use the Devnagari script and Gujarati too is similar in orthography to the two. To explain the evolution of languages from tatsam (it was) to tadbhav (it became), let us take a case study of the English language and trace its history over the ages in the following section.
Old/Middle/Modern English: A case study
Can you guess how old is the English language? It is a relatively young language. The modern form that we know of English is only a few centuries old. English is traditionally divided into three broad periods:
Old English: before 1100 A.D.
Middle English: from 1100 to 1500 A.D.
Modern English: after 1500 A.D.
It emerged from the Germanic languages that were spoken by tribes of Europe and when they settled in Britain, their ‘Anglo-Saxon’ language came to be called ‘Anglisc’ or ‘Englisc’ and the land they started living in became known as ‘Engla-land’. Several of the basic words that are used in everyday life in English come from this period like, angel, boat, father, wif, cild, etc. During this period, many words were incorporated into its lexicon from Latin, the language of the rulers, the Romans. Language at this time was heavily inflected with word endings showing the form and meaning of the word. Given below is a sample of old English (notice the orthography and the meanings of the words used).
Gradually the language changed; it borrowed words from the languages of the invaders, simplified the vocabulary and orthography. During the Middle English period there was also a remarkable change in the pronunciation of sounds, known as the Great Vowel Shift and the words sounded very different after this period from what they sounded earlier. The language became less inflected and there was loss of gender marker.
Many words were incorporated into its lexicon from the languages of the later rulers, French (the Norman French rulers in the early Middle English period). So that now we find that there are three terms referring to the same meaning in middle English; one Englisc, another Latin and third, French. For example, Luck-fortune-chance, and meed (now archaic)-reward-compensate. Look at the excerpt given below from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales which is written in Middle English.
Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
If you compare both the excerpts given above, you would notice that they differ sharply from English that you use today. The spellings are different, there are words which sound familiar but not entirely, and some words you don’t recognise. The orthography in Old English is also slightly different; Đ, ð, þ, and æ are letters that you can notice in the first excerpt, not used in the middle or modern day orthography.
After 1500 A.D. however, due to adventures into new lands and languages, scientific and technological advancements and also industrial revolution language went into further changes and modifications. Due to colonization and travel, many words were borrowed from various languages into English. Kangaroo, boomerang, bungalow, pundit, juggernaut, banana, igloo, canoe, racoon, squash, skunk, bluff, watershed are few such words which have been borrowed from various languages across the world and accepted into the English lexicon.
Efforts were being made to standardize the spelling and grammar of English and Dr. Samuel Johnson’s dictionary in the 18th C. Was a remarkable step in this direction. The language however, has continued to evolve to become what it is today and we see signs of its change every day. Here is an excerpt from newspaper showcasing the changes being brought into language even now.
Pidgin and Creole: In some parts of the world, a foreign language becomes important due to its commercial relevance. When foreign traders wish to interact with the locals of a land, there is no common language of interaction between them. Then, often, most of the business is transacted in that foreign language and the local/native people gain a smattering of that language. They use its basic vocabulary and simple sentence constructions with a basic aim to be understood by their business associates. Over time it becomes an established contact language and is called pidgin. There are several English pidgins in the worlds like the Butler English of India, Kru Pidgin, Nigerian Pidgin. Pidgins are not native language of any community and are used as second language for a limited purpose of occupation only. An example from Butler English, “One master call for come India … eh England. I say not coming. That master very liking me. I not come. That is like for India — that hot and cold. That England for very cold.”
When a pidgin is spoken for a longer stretch of time, it develops and standardizes its sound and grammar system and is learnt by the second generation of speakers, then it is called a Creole. Tok Pisin, originally a Pidgin is now a Creole and is used as the first language of its users. It has also developed more complex structures and is used for almost all communicative purposes than merely occupational, as is the case Pidgin.
Language and Regional variations
As we have discussed so far, we accept and understand that there are several varieties of languages around us. According to Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages. The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, as of 1 December 2007, lists 22 languages as official languages of India. The variety of a language spoken in a region changes as one moves away from the region; the language is still understandable but gradually the distinctions in pronunciation, lexis and even grammar become noticeable. And after some distance, these differences make the language unintelligible and is no longer a dialect but a different language. It is often said in India that ककक-ककक पर कककक कककक, ककक ककक पर कककक…. Let us look at these geographical variations in greater detail in this section.
Dialects: Dialect is a variety of language that is spoken in a particular region. it is understandable to speakers of that language but there are minor differences in pronunciation, vocabulary or speech. If you look at the variety spoken in the southern region of a state, it will be different from the variety spoken in the western or the northern region of the same state in India.
Hindi spoken in western U.P. is different from that spoken in Allahabad or that spoken in Ayodhya or that in Bhopal. Hyderabadi Hindi is different from Lucknowi. Such regional varieties of the same language are called dialects. They are mutually intelligible but there are marked differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and sometimes, even grammar. Kathiawadi is different from Surti which is different from Kutchhi (dialects of Gujarati). Dialects are considered to be the non-standard varieties of a language.
Standard language: Have you even thought that the language that is taught to you…how is it chosen? Which variety of language is considered fit to be taught and why not other varieties? This question brings us to the concept of standard language. Amidst several varieties of the same language that exist, one variety is considered as the ideal. It is usually the variety used by administrative, commercial and social centres regardless of its region. it is the language that we see in the printed form and hear in the media around us. It is considered to be chaste, accent free, sophisticated variety of language. It is this variety of language that is taught in schools, texts books use this variety and it is also cultivated in the spoken form in formal communication.
All languages have their standard forms. Think about your own regional language and try to identify which is the standard language?
Accent: whichever language is spoken, the speaker can be easily identified with one of its varieties. Accent can be said to be a characteristic way of pronunciation that is unique to the speakers of a particular variety of a language. All speakers have some or the other accent. It’s a myth that some speakers do not have an accent. Can’t you immediately place the speaker from the accent with which s/he speaks a language? A fluent speaker of English in India can be easily identified as a native Bengali or Malyali or a Punjabi speaker, isn’t it? This is because the accent of the native language rubs onto any other language that the speaker uses and can easily be identified. Accent is a determinant characteristic which clearly gives away the identity of a speaker even in the case of a confirmed multilingual.
Bilingualism and multilingualism: How many languages do you speak? One, two, three or more? Can you read and write all the languages that you speak? Is there any language that you can follow (or understand) but can’t speak or read?
Do you know that it is estimated that half the entire world’s population knows at least two languages! When a person knows only one language he is said to be multilingual. When two languages are known, the person is bilingual and a monolingual person knows more than two languages. Most of the Indians are at least bilinguals. They know their first language or the mother tongue and Hindi/English. Many Indians know four languages and they can switch comfortably from one language to another. Are there more disadvantages than advantages of knowing more than one language? What do you think?
One of the languages often is predominantly comfortable to the speakers though they can use any or all with ease. A bilingual person has advantages over a monolingual person. In addition to the facility of using two languages and being able to interact with speakers of two languages, a bilingual speaker is better adept to resolve conflicts and handle situations, some researchers suggest. It is easier for them to travel to different destinations and transact business with different people. Multi-linguals use the similarities of languages to learn faster but at times the differences make them flounder.
Language and Social variations
Language is a tool of interaction among the members of a society or a speech community. They commonly share the codes and constructs of a language. It is therefore, inevitable that language is determined by the society and vice versa, it determines society. In their famous hypothesis, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf put forward the theory of linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity. They maintain that the structure of a language affects the speakers’ world view and cognition. In Eskimo culture where snow is important, there are 22 distinct words for snow whereas English has only two. Certain cultures have only a few colours and others have many more colours and their perception of the world is coloured by their choices of lexical items. This hypothesis has never been sufficiently proven but it shows how significantly language and thought are interrelated to society.
Sociolect or Social dialects: every society has different classes and sections which have some peculiarities of language that they use. The language spoken by upper classes of the society is usually different from the language variety spoken by the lower classes. The variety spoken by different religious groups, ethnic groups and occupational classes differ from one another. G.B. Shaw in his play Pygmalion captured this distinction in speech between upper class and the flower girl and her associates. In two different classes of Tamil society in India, there is a difference in the use of the word for ‘water’. The upper class has three words to denote water whereas the lower class has only one tanni.
In parts of U.P. the language that is spoken by one religious community differs from that of another, one speaks Hindi and another speaks, Hindustani.
Registers: It is a special stylised way of using language that is peculiar to a specific context. There is a different kind of language used my doctors, lawyers, journalists and priests. A doctor would say The sample did not exhibit any incidence of abnormality in the tissue. In the Legalese it would be The plaintiff continued to argue the infractuous matter in the appellate court. The Government has approved the proposal to set up a new centre in the city, confirmed the spokesperson of the government is the journalistic jargon.
Jargons: The specialized vocabulary which makes registers identifiable or in other words, the special technical vocabulary used in a specific field of work is called jargon. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or Angiostrongyliasis are medical jargons, plaintiff, appellate, and infructuous are legal jargons and thou, Him, perdition, tribulation are jargons of use in church.
Slang and colloquialisms: The terms and phrases which do not belong to the standard variety of language but are acceptable and frequently used in some communities or groups of people. For example, words like, peti, khokha, thuglife, bucks, etc. Often slangs are fads and as fashions change slangs too pass out of use frequently. Youth and youngsters have their own informal codes and phrases which are often not used or accepted by the larger formal speech community. These words often are not even listen in dictionaries.
Language and culture
Language and culture are closely interrelated. Various cultural constructs, norms and customs are captured in the language of a place.
Construction of identity, Power and prestige: When you meet someone for the first time you try to guess where the person comes from, which is the native place and the native language of the person. We are known by our language. Even though one may live in Andhra Pradesh, if s/he speaks Assamese or Oriya, her/his identity would be related to the first language one speaks. Thus, our language shapes our identity. In a multilingual situation this becomes a very interesting phenomenon as we use our knowledge of different languages to float between different identities.
Let us understand this by taking a case study of a Punjabi Engineer working in a multinational company in Bengaluru. When the lady comes to office, she interacts with her Bengali boss in English, with her co-workers in Hindi as they are from various places all over India. When she meets a Punjabi in the office she immediately starts using Punjabi. When she goes to the market, she talks to the shopkeeper in little Kannad that she knows. A common sight, isn’t it? Can you analyse what processes are at work in this lady’s situation. Yes, you are right! It is the construction of identity and belongingness that makes her change from one language to another. Her identity is that of an employee, so she uses English, which is a formal language of intellection and business interactions.
English is also considered as a language of power and prestige in our country. When you want to be assertive, you change to English and when you want a favour from someone, you use a common language to show solidarity and common identity.
Another expression of power and prestige is evident in the T/V distinctions, which are the pronoun markers for addressing individuals. When someone addresses you as “hey bro”, solidarity is being indicated by the use of tu (you…close) whereas addressing someone as “Excuse me, Sir/Madam…” is a vous (respectful you…distant). The first form of address establishes a closeness and nearness of relationship between the participants whereas the second form of address is reverential, formal, distant and indicates superior-subordinate relation too. In a vous relationship, the superior may address the subordinate by tu address but not vice versa.
In a multilingual society the workings of power, prestige and identity take a very interesting form as described above. There are two more instances of such interchanges. A speaker might shift frequently from one language code to another. It may be by using words of another language in the lexicon of one predominant language (code mixing) or switching from sentences of one language into a sentence or two of another language interspersed in the discourse (code switching). For example,
You know there are mast reviews about this new movie, yehi dangal…arree Aamir Khan ki nayi movie. I am going to watch it …kal hi…with my friends. (code mixing) There is a lot of political uncertainty going on in Tamil Nadu. Kal O. Paneerselvam ne resign kar diya aur ab Sasikala Chief Minister banegi. I don’t know what is going to happen next! (code switching)
Linguistic Relativity: As mentioned briefly in 35.4, languages across the world differ. One language might value something and ascribe several words to it whereas another language might have only one word for the same. In your language, how many words are there for ‘lotus’? Can you think of some reasons why it is so? In Hindi there are numerous words for ‘lotus’, kamal, padma, pankaj, etc. Can you guess why there is this differentiation? Is there anything related to culture and the construction of the society which is responsible for this difference in two languages?
Sapir-Whorf in their hypothesis mention that our language shapes the way we view the world. As different languages bring their relative construction to its users, they view the world as it is influenced or determined by the language. We talk about our external reality as we perceive it through the predetermined categories laid down by our language. For example, in western societies, people often decide their own partner in marriage but in India this is not the custom. So we now have two terms to differentiate this practice, arranged marriage and love marriage. The concept of dating is also not there in our culture; so there isn’t any relevant word for the same.
Factors responsible for Language Change
If we look closely at all the discussion we had so far with respect to the changes that occur in languages, we can make out that there are some common factors which are responsible for these changes.
The first factor which was responsible for changes to occur in languages, even in the early periods was the need for simplification. Many grammatical rules which were complex became simplified for ease of use. This simplification often occurred due to analogy, similarity to some other rules and languages. Earlier, as you know, the languages were used predominantly in the oral form and there is much more possibility of change happening in the spoken form of language than in the written form which is more standardized and controlled.
Another factor which led to changes was the application of words in related contexts (figurative meaning) and led to expansion, narrowing or complete change in the meanings of words. Further, when different languages came in contact, words which referred to cultural and contextual peculiarity were borrowed as no equivalent term existed in the target language. This led to expansion of vocabulary as well to semantic changes.
As different professions developed, they used stylised vocabulary and structures unique to their field and this also brought about changes in language. Trade and commerce between countries necessitated exchanges in languages which led to modifications. Construction of society and culture with notions of power, prestige, identity and solidarity facilitated changes in languages. In addition gender, age, class, caste, race, caste and religion too played their role to modify languages. All these factors have been responsible and continue to play a role in language change.
Summary
Languages change in ways that make old sounds into new sounds and words into grammar, and they shift in different directions, so that eventually there are languages as different as German and Japanese. At all times, any language is gradually on its way to changing into a new one; the language that is not gradually turning upside-down is one on the verge of extinction. This kind of change is so relentless that it even creates “languages within languages.” In separate populations who speak the same language, changes differ. The result is variations upon the language—that is, dialects. Often one dialect is chosen as the standard one, and when it is used in writing, it changes more slowly than the ones that are mostly just spoken, because the permanency of writing has an official look that makes change seem suspicious. But the dialects that are mostly just spoken keep on changing at a more normal pace. Then, the languages of the world tend to mix together on various levels. All languages borrow words from one another; there is no “pure” vocabulary. But some borrow so much vocabulary that there is little original material left, such as in English. And meanwhile, languages spoken alongside one another also trade grammar, coming to look alike the way married couples sometimes do. Some languages are even direct crosses between one language and another, two languages having “reproduced” along the lines of mitosis. There are several factors which make languages behave like human beings. The circumstances and situation that lead languages to change and adapt are the changing times, new requirements, societal construction and negotiations of identity, power, prestige, gender, age, occupation and the like.
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Reference
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